The art is replete with disclosures of hair care compositions which include one or more conditioning agents for improving one or more of a variety of tactile or visual hair benefits, for example smoothness, softness, shine, anti-static, ease of wet and/or dry combing.
Known conditioning agents for use in hair care compositions include cationic surfactants, volatile or non-volatile silicones, cationic polymers, protein hydrolyzates and quaternised protein hydrolizates, among which silicones are generally the most common. The use of volatile or non-volatile silicones as hair conditioning agents is disclosed for example in EP-A-0 432 951 (Unilever), EP-A-0 240 350 (Procter & Gamble) and EP-A-0 035 899 (Procter & Gamble).
Another material which has recently been proposed, for example in EP-A-03602921, for use as a conditioning agent in hair care compositions is a perfluoropolyether (PFPE) material. The use of low levels of PFPE's in hair conditioning compositions is described in our European Patent publication No. EP-A-0486135.
A problem associated with many known conditioning agents such as those mentioned above is that their use at levels necessary for achieving good tactile benefits like softness and combability is often at the expense of other benefits, for example visual benefits such as shine. Thus, hitherto it has been difficult to achieve good hair benefits over a wide range of tactile and visual descriptors.